Investment plan ball in Tesla’s court, says India

India’s industry secretary said the ball is now in Tesla Inc.’s court to lay down its investment plans for the South Asian nation after the government cut import duty on electric vehicles.

The industry department last month released a comprehensive policy for boosting EV manufacturing. Following that move, it’s up to Elon Musk’s carmaker to “make the announcements of their manufacturing plans,” Rajesh Kumar Singh, secretary of department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), told Bloomberg in an interview on Thursday.

“We will help them out in terms of giving them the contacts at Statelevel,” Singh said. “There have been contacts made at that level with State governments and the Central government. VinFast has already announced and we expect a few others.” Vietnamese automaker VinFast recently broke ground on an EV manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.

TESLA’S PLAN

Tesla is planning to send a team of people to scout for locationsthis month for a proposed $2$3 billion electric car plant, the Financial Times reported earlier this week, citing people familiar with the matter that it didn’t identify. Tesla would also look to increase purchases of auto parts from India to as much as $15 billion, Bloomberg reported in November.

Tesla has for years been been making a case for cutting import taxes before it commits to any significant investment in one of the world’s biggest automobile markets.

To get tax concessions, companies will have to invest at least ₹4,150 crore ($500 million) and start producing EVs from a local plant within three years, the Centre said in March. Singh said on Thursday that the policy should help spur growth of EVs in the country.

“We expect it to lead to a penetration of fourwheeler electric vehicles to at least 10 per cent by 2030,” he said. “My view is that if we have these manufacturing units up and running, along with the battery infrastructure that is now going up, it should be closer to 15 per cent by 2030, after which it will just snowball.”

Tesla has begun production of righthand drive cars at its plant in Germany for export to India later this year, three people aware of the company’s plans told Reuters, as it moves ahead with a possible entry into the world’s thirdlargest car market.

“The righthand drive cars which will be allocated to India, they have started building them,” one of the people said.

It was not clear which model Tesla plans to export to India. It currently produces only the

Model Y at its factory near Berlin. Tesla did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment outside US office hours.

There have been contacts made at that level with State governments and the Central government. VinFast has already announced and we expect a few others

RAJESH KUMAR SINGH

Secretary, DPIIT

Company starts making ‘India cars’ at German plant